A Cold Day in Hell: The Dull Knife Battle, 1876

The Sacred Buffalo Hat remains not only a spiritual object, but a pawn in the struggles between warring factions in the Northern Cheyenne here on their Montana reservation. As recently as November 11, 1994, the traditionalists “kidnapped” the Hat from its Sacred Lodge near Lame Deer. For nearly three months the lines were clearly drawn between those who are traditional and those who are more willing to accommodate white culture on the reservation. And then, even after Cheyenne U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell came west to mediate unsuccessfully, the two sides agreed at least to talk.

Eventually, as one would turn over a hostage, the Sacred Hat Bundle was peacefully turned over to the Sun Dance Priest, Francis Kills Night, although Bureau of Indian Affairs police were on hand in the event matters got out of hand. It was agreed that the tribe’s traditional warrior societies would now discuss and decide upon who would become the new Keeper of the Hat. They stated it was far better to solve their religious differences among themselves than allow the interference of outside forces including the Indian Bureau and the FBI.

So it was that at three minutes till noon on Friday, January 27, 1995—Sun Dance Priest Kills Night trudged through the mud and a misting rain with the sacred bundle on his back. He entered its Sacred Lodge. Esevone had come home to her people.

On the Northern Cheyenne Reservation there are three people I have called upon to help in explaining culture and religion to this ve-ho-e writer, hoping that I would get it right, praying I would capture the spirit of those people, the true spirit of that time. First of all, I want to thank Josephine Sootkis and her daughter Ruby, of the Dull Knife Memorial College, both of whom are direct descendants of Morning Star. And I appreciate the help of Ted Rising Sun, another direct descendant of the chief known to the white man as Dull Knife. Their stories and heartfelt scholarship have proved invaluable to me in expressing the horror of this tragic conflict. Ruby herself is busy at work on a screenplay dealing with the 1879 outbreak of the Dull Knife forces from Fort Robinson. In addition, Bill Tall Bull, tribal historian, always makes himself available to answer questions, however minute, no matter how ignorant those questions may sound coming from the mouth of a white man.

Disappointed and cold, Crook and Mackenzie sat on the banks of the Belle Fourche as long as they could in that December. Then on the twentieth they received a terse telegram from Phil Sheridan with the information that their transportation bill for the campaign was sixty thousand dollars per month, while the allowance was a mere twenty-eight thousand dollars. “Those few words,” John Bourke noted in his diary, “mean that this campaign must terminate speedily.”

The commanders were forced at last to turn the expedition back to Fort Fetterman, where within weeks the campaign was disbanded.

Headquarters Powder River

Expedition

Cheyenne, W.T., January 8, 1877

General Orders

No. 10

The Brigadier General Commanding announces the close of the Powder River Expedition, and avails himself of the opportunity to thank the officers and men composing it, for the ability, courage, endurance and zeal exhibited by them during its progress.

With the mercury indicating such extreme degrees of cold as to make life well nigh unbearable, even when surrounded by the comforts of civilization, you have endured, with uncomplaining fortitude, the rigors of the weather from which you had less to protect you than an Indian is usually provided with.

The disintegration of many of the hostile bands of savages against whom you have been operating attests the success of the brilliant fight made by the Cavalry with the Cheyennes on the North Fork, and your toilsome marches along the Powder River and Belle Fourche.

It is a matter for solemn regret that you have to mourn the loss of the distinguished and brilliant young Cavalry officer, First Lieutenant John A. McKinney, 4th Cavalry, and the gallant enlisted men who fell with him in the lonely gorges of the Big Horn Mountains …

By Command of Brigadier-General Crook

(signed) John G. Bourke

As Crook disbanded the expedition, he ordered Mackenzie’s Fourth Cavalry back to Camp Robinson. Not only were many of the animals broken down and almost out of forage in those final weeks, but the endless and severe cold, coupled with that intensely contested battle and their brutal march to the Belle Fourche, had all taken its toll on not just the soldiers but Crook’s officer corps as well.

Most dramatic was the deteriorating mental condition of Ranald Mackenzie himself.